“I think the city clerk (salary) needs to be cut even more than what we got here” Nelson City Councilman Jackie Jarrett pushed for deeper cuts to the city clerk’s salary this week. The comment followed the second reading of the city’s FY13 budget at the council’s August meeting Monday night. Previously, the clerk’s salary was already cut by $2000, from $48,000 to $46,000.

“I think the city clerk (salary) needs to be cut even more than what we got here,”

he said Monday night. Jarrett also argued that council should take a look at the policy of taking police cars home for the police chief as another way to cut the city’s cost, adding that he thought the city was broke and wasn’t going to make it to the end of the year, questioning why some of the salaries were only minimally cut. Responding, Councilman Duane Cronic reminded Jarrett that council has already cut $72,000 from the budget.

Although silent on cuts to the clerk’s salary specifically, Cronic said, in the upcoming months he would like to discuss salary contracts for Nelson’s two department heads.

“I would like to discuss more about contracts, us making sure our two department heads are on salary, a forty-hour a week salary,”

he said. He went on to explain that if they had to work late one night, they would receive time off later in the week, limiting them to forty hours. Cronic added that this structure would also eliminate over-time. However, he said he was not prepared to talk about such contracts at the time, saying he would have to further discuss the issue with City Attorney Jeff Rushbridge. In response, Jarrett said he thought the passage of the budget premature, suggesting to table the passage of the budget until the contracts were settled.

“The contract (for the department heads) will say exactly what it says here,”

Cronin assured Jarrett,

“what it says in the budget is what the contract will say.”

Cronic also said the cutting back of the sanitation department was a mistake.

“What we were budgeting versus what they were working was just an oversight,”

he said. Additionally, he reminded Jarrett and council that the budget could be amended at any time in the future.

Council approved the budget, while Jarrett was the only member to vote against it.

See The Nelson FY13 Budget below.